A 90-Second Guide to Determine if Your Internet Cause Is BS

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Hey there, Internet person about to click "post" -- did you know that just because you're extremely passionate about a cause, it doesn't mean it can't be, well, super dumb? After all, even your uncle who thinks Barack Obama is a crab-monster from Alpha Centauri is convinced he's on the side of righteousness. Luckily, we've put together a short questionnaire to help you figure out where your post stands. It shouldn't take much time!

Question 1: Does Your Cause Require an Elaborate Conspiracy Theory to Be True?

If you answered yes, it's probably bullshit.

For instance, let's say there's a movement called #GamerGate, about irate gamers protesting the lack of ethics in gaming journalism. OK, sounds like a good, simple cause. Now, let's say the specific ethical breach that enraged them is about a feminist indie game designer who a bunch of gamers already hated supposedly gaining control of the gaming media through her vagina -- all of this based on the conjectures of a guy on YouTube who also seems to think government scientists are involved. As in, apparently there's a secret DARPA project to brainwash gamers into, uh, being more tolerant of women. The bastards.

via gamergate.giz.moe
All that's missing is a nonsensical insert of Ron P- wait, no, there he is.

Guys, if you Google long enough you can find a conspiracy theory proving anything -- from vaccines causing autism (CDC cover up!) to the government trying to take your guns (it's Obama and ACORN!). Whenever you find yourself following an intricate narrative that happens to push all the outrage-related buttons in your brain, maybe it's time to re-examine what you're upset about.

Question 2: Does Your Cause Apply Only When It's Convenient?

If you answered yes, it's probably bullshit.

Look no further than Reddit and 4Chan hollering battle cries against the NSA's access to personal information in what was practically the same expelled jacking-off breath for the leaked Jennifer Lawrence pics -- going so far as to protect the people behind the leak:

Reddit
"UNLESS THEY'VE GOT GOOD BOOBS. THEN FUCK 'EM. POST AWAY."

This is from a website that has policies in place against posting other people's private photos -- the apparent exception being if the tits in question are famous. It's the same way none of the gun-obsessed Chipotle militias' declared rights apply to the Ferguson protests, or that the values of people buying organic at Trader Joe's don't apply to hurting the environment through marijuana production.

Question 3: Have You Ever Experienced a Real-World Example of Your Cause?

If you answered no, it's most likely bullshit.

Ask a fanatical gun nut if, for all their paranoia, they've ever had their weapons physically taken away from them by the government. Those guys sure are silly and deluded, huh? OK, now replace "guns" with "games about guns" and "government" with "the feminist anti-sexism cabal." We know you're very upset about this topic, but have you ever suffered a real-world consequence from it? You know, stuff like:

npr.org

bostonglobe.com
We picked non-gaming sites just for you, dear conspiracy theorist.

You could probably find an example where a guy did get bullied by a pack of feminists and they burned his copy of GTA V, just like the gun nuts eagerly point to the time the government did take a drunken blind guy's weapons (and then returned them). The scale model for this is "racism" vs. "prejudice" -- the latter is where you find individual cases of white men being harassed or beaten up for being white, the former is a societal problem like 52 percent of crack smokers being white while 79 percent of all sentenced offenders are black. Anyone can prove vaccination is unsafe when they use the one or two times a child was injured when a vaccine aggravates an unknown cell disorder, but that requires ignoring broad trends and statistics saying how rare that is. Anyone can prove there's no sexism if they ignore all the sexism.